Christmas is always a time for trying to pick out the popular toys that the kids will love.

Unfortunately, it isn’t just parents, aunts and uncles … and grandparents etc. that are trying that prediction. A charitable word would be ‘entrepeneurs’ whereas a less charitable name would be a ‘shark’.

Yet again, the sharks are out in force to exploit the massive popularity of the 2009 hit Go Go Hamster range of toys and accessories.

I spotted these toys in July and saw that they were due to come in to the UK from August. Since then, they have been flying off the shelves. However, the biggest question must be “who is buying them?”.

I suspect that we are a little early for toy sales to have reached their Christmas peak, yet we have some retailers saying that it will be weeks before they have new stock. At the same time, we see the toys being sold via eBay and Amazon MarketPlace for anything up to three times the price for some accessories. In my opinion, the toys are mostly being bought to raise a quick buck.

Whilst I applaud people who manage to make money in a recessionary environment, this annual pattern of trading popular toys for excessive profit sits very uncomfortably with me as it feels like exploitation rather than ordinary commercial activity.

It appears that there is little that can be done to stop people offering their wares at a profit as there is absolutely nohing illegal in it; however, I can only encourage parents who are looking for the Go Go Pet Hamster toys to buy well in advance from reputable stores at a fair price. If everyone did that, then there would be no market for products at inflated cost as the importers would arrange to keep backfilling their shelves with enough properly priced product to satisfy demand.